A few DSO's - 19-07-07

[Grant]

Heres a few more dso's from tonight:

(click to enlarge)

M13 10x30 secs stacked, again as with my M57, I had trouble using the raws and dark frame, I've uploaded the raw captures and jpgs to: http://iseestars.net/M13.zip (114mb), please feel free to have a play

(click to enlarge)

M31

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Unknown! Please help!

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Unknown 2, Please help!

The two unkown ones were taken randomly from the guided tour feature on my eq6, I think one might be the Eagle Nebula and the other is the Lagoon Nebula but thats pure guesswork? Any ideas?

Cheers,

Grant

[FLO]

Blimey Grant, way to go!

[russ]

Is the last one M17 - The Swan ????

The one above it I don't know..... Rosette or Trifid ??

Great stuff Grant.....nice job!

[geppetto]

Really nice captures Grant 8)

[Ant]

I agree Russ, my guess would be the Swan for the last one. If you [removed word] your head 90 degrees clockwise - you can see that a little easier.

The other one - haven't a clue - I'll have a search tonight on SN if you want. Sounds like you were facing south - that'll help...

Great going Grant.

Ant

[CELESCOPE]

good start Grant well done mate , tracking looks ok , but longer exposure needed

Rog

[SteveL]

Hi Grant

I`m getting an error trying to download your M13.zip file

[Cloudwatcher]

The second 'mystery photo' is definitely M17,and a good one! Personally I always see a duck rather than a swan.

The first, I'm pretty sure,judging by the dark lanes, is M20, also in Sagittarius,although I sit to be corrected.

Cheers

CW

[MikeD]

Another great set of images.

[Grant]

Thanks guys

I think you might be right, one could be the Swan Nebula, that rings a bell

Steve, I mistyped the link, the raws for the M13 are: http://iseestars.net/M13.zip

Cheers,

Grant

[GazOC]

Great shots Grant!!

If those were taken with a DSLR then I'd guess the first image is M20/M21.....

[SteveL]

I managed to massage this out of your M13 RAWs

[Grant]

WOW! Thats awesome Steve

Do you mind me asking, how you did it?

[SteveL]

Pixie dust

Lets see:

Deep Sky Stacker to stack the images + dark frame

loaded into PSCS

Levels to generally make the brightest stars even brighter (they were very dim to start with)

Curves to make the dimmer stars brighter (but without over bloating the bright stars)

Noel's Actions to increase star colour

some unsharp masking

resize, crop, save, upload, post link...

I think that pretty much covers it.

[Grant]

See, when I did Deep Sky stacker, it gave me a really rubbish image, I think I might need to read the manual

Cheers Steve

[SteveL]

did you, by any chance, stack them in DSS, and see the on-screen washed out and screwed final version and think "thats Rubbish"? If so, thats nothing like what is in the file if you save it to disk.

I have to say though that the image DSS spat out wasnt that different to what you had posted originally... a bit sharper maybe, but not by much

[Grant]

Would that be because they were only 30 second shots so there wasn't much noise etc... for the stacking to make any difference? What you describe is exactly what happened in DSS, it looked rubbish so I gave up

I've just received my (now working) serial camera cable so next time, I should be able to leave it running and get much longer exposures...

[steppenwolf]

Well done, Grant, a good night's work!

[barkis]

Yep. the unknowns are M8 and M17. I think Nice too Grant.

Ron.

[Astroman]

Confirm, the first unknown is M8, the Lagoon nebula and the second is M17, the Swan. Nice!